Menzieshill High School
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Established in 1968, Menzieshill High School is a Scottish secondary school in the Menzieshill area of Dundee, Scotland.
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[edit] The Pupils
The school caters for around one thousand pupils aged between eleven-and-a-half to eighteen in First to Sixth Year, and admits those who live in the Gowrie Park, Menzieshill, Charleston, Lochee and Dryburgh catchment areas of Dundee. This area consists of a mixture of privately owned and council housing. The feeder primary schools are:-
- Gowriehill Primary School
- Hillside Primary School
- Lochee Primary School
- Charleston Primary School
- Ancrum Road Primary School
- Longforgan Primary School
[edit] School Houses
The pupils at the school are split into three Houses: Aberfeldy, Fortingall and Weem, which all named after Scottish villages. There was a fourth House named Culdares, which was disbanded in 2005. Pupils sent into a House randomly upon admission, or depending on previous or current family alliegiances. Points can be won for the Houses by winning sporting events or being involved in charity work on the school's behalf with the aim to compete for the House Championship. For each House, there is a male and female House captain, who are usually pupils in their Sixth Year, and a teacher who serves as Head of House.
[edit] The School Day
A normal day at Menzieshill begins at 8.55am and ends at 3.40pm with a fifteen minute morning break and an hour for lunch. After a fifteen minute registration in the morning, children do six periods of lessons a day which last for fifty-three minutes.
[edit] Extra Curricular Activities
Menzieshill High School provides a number of extra curricular clubs for pupils to participate in, including Science Club, chess and various music and sporting activities. A number of pupils have gone on to participate on an international level for the school water polo, swimming and football teams. The school football team has also established links to an American high school Calvert Hall College and boys have visited the United States, staying with families of pupils who attend the College. The Languages department of the school has maintained close ties with a French secondary school for the past two decades. An exchange programme is ran so that Second Year pupils can have a French pupil stay with them for a week then, the following year, the Menzieshill schoolchildren will travel to France to stay with their French counterpart.
Responsible pupils in their Fifth and Sixth Year can volunteer to act as prefects, taking on various duties such as assisting teachers maintain discipline over break and lunch, take assemblies and guide visiting Primary Seven or new First Year pupils around the school. Every June, children who have excelled in school work or sporting activities are invited to the city's Caird Hall where they are awarded merit certificates, prizes and trophies in front of proud fellow classmates, parents and teachers.
In 2002, the school was involved in piloting the Reality Project, a computer initiative designed to be a sexual health education resource for secondary school pupils.[1] Tayside having the highest rate of teenage pregnancies was also reflected in the fact that, in 2005, Menzieshill High became the first school in the city to open a Mother and Baby Unit so teenage mothers could attend school while their babies were cared for in another room.[2] This caused controversy, not least because it meant the Sixth Year pupils lost their common room to the Unit.
[edit] References
- ^ "Sex Education Goes Hi-tech". BBC (30 May 2007). Retrieved on 2002-02-11.
- ^ "If We Treat Teen Mums Too Well, They’ll Multiply". The Sunday Times (30 May 2007). Retrieved on 2005-04-24.
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